Cleaner or clean label products are becoming more and more popular among ice cream consumers. The demand is in particular directed to products that are free from artificial ingredients such as artificial flavors, colors and emulsifiers, defined as “additives” or ingredients with so-called “E-numbers”.
While the replacement of artificial flavors and colors by natural ingredients may not have a major impact on the key attributes of the product, the functionality of stabilizers and emulsifiers is such that their replacement by natural ingredients is very challenging. In fact, those ingredients play an important role in terms of texture, scoopability, melting rate, heat shock resistance and shelf-life of the frozen confectionary products.
The term “heat shock” as used herein, unless otherwise indicated, means the temperature fluctuations related to the storage and transportation of frozen confections. Heat shock can be simulated by treating a frozen ice cream product to temperature cycling of about −8 C to about −20° C. every 12 hours, with 30 min temperature ramp time for a period of about two weeks, or by any other method commonly used in the industry. Efficient emulsifiers well known and widely used in any range of frozen confectionary products include ingredients defined as “additives” or ingredients with so-called “E-numbers”. Examples of such additives often found in frozen confectionery formulations include mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids, esters of mono- and digylcerides of fatty acids, polyglycerol esters of fatty acids, polysorbates etc. They have certain drawbacks. These emulsifiers are in fact perceived as “non-natural” ingredients, deemed to be unhealthy in the eyes of the consumer. The presence of these ingredients in frozen confection recipes leads to reduced authenticity of the frozen confectionary products.
Natural emulsifiers are known but they are often not as efficient as any known additives to stabilize frozen confections and their use has therefore been limited heretofore to products easier to stabilize such as “premium” or “super premium” products.
Such “premium” range of frozen confectioneries is usually characterised by a rather low overrun e.g. below 50%, high levels of fat and high levels of protein. Their total solid content is also usually above 40 wt %. The low overrun in these products provides them with a low thermal sensitivity and therefore these products are less affected by heat shock. On the other hand, the high protein content usually compensates the need of any “non natural” emulsifier. However the proteins being expensive, this solution is not preferred for standard or “mainstream” frozen confectionary products.
For example, EP 2025240 discloses a natural stabiliser system that can be used in the manufacture of natural frozen confectionary products. The stabiliser system of EP 2025240 comprises native rice starch and fibres from vegetables, fruits or mixtures thereof. Starch is a carbohydrate and the use of starch is a nontraditional component of frozen confectionary products. EP 2025240 publication discloses frozen confectionary products which are aerated with an overrun of 20-80%, and products with a protein content higher than 3%. EP 2025240 publication fails to disclose solutions suitable for mainstream range.
Mainstream frozen confectionary products are usually characterised by an overrun above 80% and their content in protein is lower than that of “premium” frozen confectioneries, to make such products affordable to most consumers.
Providing mainstream frozen confectionary products using natural ingredients while not compromising on the product stability is a challenge. Premium ice creams are usually made with fat from a dairy source and contain little or no fat from a vegetable source. These frozen confectionary products are expensive to manufacture and thus costly to the consumer due to the high load of quality ingredients. These products can also be seen as unhealthy due to the high levels of fat and sugars.
WO 2012/016816 relates to mainstream products and describes a solution based on the use of egg yolk as natural emulsifier. However the use of egg yolk might be limited due to allergen issues of some consumers.
There is thus a need to overcome the deficiencies as known in the prior art.